Amazon’s Free App Program a Disconnect with Developers and Consumers [Stats]

Amazon has a mostly good program offering a paid Android app away for free everyday to consumers (known as FAD). While it helps build their audience, it dangles the carrot of exposure over developers heads who carry the risk for this program, yet it is great for consumers as they get mostly good apps at no cost. However, added to recent developer outrage are the occasional disconnects Amazon has with its consumers; such as the free app of today Memory Booster which is receiving 1.5 star (and falling) negative reviews as it is useless for 96.7% of all Android devices.

The app is a task killer app, there has been some great Internet debate about this for quite some time, however, for phones running Android 2.1 or higher these types of apps are unnecessary and can become counterproductive. We have seen Amazon forced to swap out really poor apps in the past such as Solitaire Deluxe on June 26th & Newsweek Mobile on March 28th. We have been keeping a track on this program for some time and have some interesting findings in our own recent survey of Amazon’s FAD program:

When asked what features consumers value most in an app store ‘Free Apps of the Day’ was of neutral importance, whereas, the key factors of high importance were ‘Quality of Apps’, ‘User Reviews’, ‘Confirmation Before Purchase’, ‘Sales Price Reductions’, and ‘Expert Reviews’.

Consumers were nearly split when asked if they felt the program was fair to developers; 38.8% says Yes, 32.7% say No, and 28.6% say Maybe… many responses with mixed feelings.

In this same survey, 31.6% of respondents felt the FAD program was a ‘Great way to get free apps I’ll never pay for.‘ However not all exhibited greedy responses as 26.5% of respondents felt the program was a ‘Great way to test out quality apps, yet I still pay for apps.‘

In conclusion, it behooves Amazon not to be more conscious of the Android community when trying to sell Android apps. It should not be on predatory terms to developers nor forsake quality just to build an audience.